Messiah Homepage News Archive

More than 2,000 guests attended the 22nd annual “Taste of Central Pennsylvania,” held on Nov. 2 at Strawberry Square in Harrisburg. Attendees at the appetizing event enjoy food and beverage tastings prepared by culinary teams from the finest restaurants and dining venues from across Central Pennsylvania—including Messiah College.

Messiah was one of 45 regional restaurants, businesses and organizations that donated food and culinary talent to the fundraiser, which this year raised more than $100,000 to help hungry families in the midstate. (This is Messiah College’s twelfth year to participate in the event.) In addition to revenue from ticket proceeds, guests may leave additional monetary donations at individual booths as a show of appreciation and enjoyment for the food being served. This year, Messiah’s booth generated the most donations among the individual culinary teams—earning them the event’s prestigious “People’s Choice Award.”

The Messiah culinary team, led by Executive Chef Percell Green, was also comprised of Scott Douville, Ana Marrero, Beverly Spangler and Andrew White. They prepared and served two of Messiah College’s signature items, “Baby Blue Salad Parfait” (made with mesclun salad greens, spicy pecans, strawberries, mandarin oranges, balsamic vinaigrette and blue cheese) and “Chocolate Mousse Indulgence.” Bon appétit!

Read the related “Patriot-News” op-ed by Richard Hughes, Senior Fellow at the Ernest L. Boyer Center.

This group of community leaders screened the film, “The Power of Forgiveness” to explore its lessons for the city of Harrisburg and the broader community. The event, held on Oct. 31, was sponsored by the Ernest L. Boyer Center at Messiah College, in collaboration with WITF, Central Pennsylvania’s public broadcasting station, and the Central Pennsylvania Diocese of the Episcopal Church.

Produced by Martin Doblmeier, founder and president of Journey Films, “The Power of Forgiveness” is a documentary that explores how genuine forgiveness can change relationships within a given community. This film won the Sun Valley Film Festival’s Best Film Award, the Silver Screen Award from the International Film and Video Festival, the Wilbur Award and the Christopher Award. As the film’s web site describes, it includes “feature stories on the Amish, the 9/11 tragedy and peace-building in Northern Ireland, along with interviews with renowned Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, best-selling authors Thomas Moore and Marianne Williamson and others. The film also explores the role forgiveness holds in various faiths traditions.”

Following the screening of the film, which was held at WITF’s studio in Harrisburg, community leaders engaged in conversation, along with the film’s producer, discussing the implications the film’s themes hold for the Harrisburg region. The event was facilitated by Nathan Baxter, bishop, Central Pennsylvania Diocese of the Episcopal Church; Kathleen Pavelko, president and CEO, WITF; and Richard Hughes, senior fellow, Ernest L. Boyer Center, Messiah College.

Messiah College artist-in-residence and renown jazz saxophonist Tim Warfield was invited to perform at the Kennedy Center’s Oct. 26 awards gala honoring humorist Bill Cosby with the 12th Annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Warfield will perform with the Terell Stafford Group, featuring Bruce Barth, piano; Eric Wheeler, bass; and the legendary Mickey Roker on drums. Other guest performers include Jerry Seinfeld, Wynton Marsalis, and Rita Moreno. The program will be taped and air on PBS stations nationwide on Nov. 4.

The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival recently honored the work of several students and an alumnus from Messiah College’s Theatre Department. Jim Knipple, from the Class of 2000, will receive the festival’s Certificate of Merit for his direction of “Fertile Ground,” in recognition of the play’s exceptional elements of production. “Fertile Ground: Stories from Messiah’s First 100 Years,” is an original blackbox production written by alumna Deborah Harbin DeGeorge ’03, to commemorate the College’s Centennial year. The play was performed on campus to sold-out audiences on Oct. 8-16.

Current students Sarah Burgess, Kimberley Lambertson, Ashley James, and Gabriella Saramago are also nominated through the festival for the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship. The main focus of this nomination and subsequent competition is to celebrate the nation’s finest student actors and the craft that enables them to create compelling and truthful characterizations. These students will compete at the regional level in January 2010. Lambertson and Saramago were nominated for their roles in “The Spitfire Grill” under the direction of Edward Cohn and Elaine Henderson. Burgess and James were nominated for their roles in “Fertile Ground.”

Messiah professors Douglas and Rhonda Jacobsen have been recognized with the prestigious Lilly Fellows Program Book Award for their book, “The American University in a Postsecular Age.” According to award’s criteria, “The biennial Lilly Fellows Program Book Award honors an original and imaginative work from any academic discipline that best exemplifies the central ideas and principles animating the Lilly Fellows Program. These include faith and learning in the Christian intellectual tradition, the vocation of teaching and scholarship, and the history, theory or practice of the university as the site of religious inquiry and culture.”

Douglas Jacobsen, professor of church history and theology, and Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen, professor of psychology, were confirmed as the winners of the 2009 award during the first week in October. Their book, “The American University in a Postsecular Age” (Oxford University Press, 2008), offers a “groundbreaking set of essays” that explore the implications of religion as a “pervasive and creative force” in American higher education and its influence on teaching and research in the broader academy. The Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts, based at Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana, seeks to “strengthen the quality and shape the character of church-related institutions of higher learning for the 21st century.”

The Mendelssohn Piano Trio, an ensemble-in-residence at Messiah College, recently signed a five-year contract with Centaur Records to record a complete cycle of piano trios by Haydn. A significant and prestigious recording project, the Mendelssohn Trio will become only the second trio in the U.S. to have recorded such a work in its entirety.

The Collaboratory’s Mali Water and Disabilities Study team, in partnership with World Vision Mali and the West Africa Water Initiative (WAWI), recently concluded their three-year assessment of the access and use of water and sanitation facilities by disabled and elderly persons. Dean Ray Norman just returned from Mali, where he gave the final presentation for this study in Bamako (the capital of Mali) to representatives for World Vision Mali, Ghana, Niger, Ethiopia, Zambia, and the U.S. The study’s team developed simple, low-cost alternatives to improve access to wells and latrines in Mali and provided recommendations to World Vision Mali and WAWI to ensure that their facilities will be accessible to all. This study was funded by a three-year, $150,000 grant from the Conrad Hilton Foundation.

Messiah launched a new minor this semester in gender studies, focusing on how gender influences everyday life. Offered in partnership with the Department of Human Development and Family Science and the Department of Sociology, Social Work and Criminal Justice, the minor focuses on both women and men and the personal and social dynamics between the genders. The theories, concepts, and skills developed through this program help students better understand gender relations in domestic, religious, workplace, and political settings. Students pursuing this minor are also encouraged to pursue active learning through internships or the Philadelphia Campus.

Messiah’s Harrisburg Institute, in partnership with the Messiah College Department of Visual Arts’ Student Art League, will be on ongoing participant in the City of Harrisburg’s “First Friday Gallery Walk,” when from 6-9 p.m. on the first Friday of every month, local city galleries open their doors for free public art showings in various downtown locations. The Harrisburg Institute, located at 28 Dewberry St., opened its first exhibit on Sept. 4. New monthly exhibits of Messiah student and alumni art will run through the end of the academic year. The Harrisburg Institute’s inaugural exhibit features the work of Messiah College student artists Ammon Perry, Dana Scannapieco, Kelly Sefter, and Eli Smith.

On Sept. 14, author Tracy Kidder shared with an audience of 1,200 Messiah students, faculty and surrounding community members, his experience with researching and writing his enormously influential book, “Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World.” The College selected “Mountains Beyond Mountains” as the 2009 common reading book for Messiah’s first-year students, so Kidder’s Centennial keynote lecture also served as Messiah’s Common Reading Convocation.

“Mountains Beyond Mountains,” captures two global health crises, tuberculosis and AIDS, through the eyes of a single-minded physician bent on improving the health of some of the poorest people on the planet. The story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a major force in revolutionizing international health, is a gripping and inspiring account of one man’s efforts to establish clinics and hospitals - his compassion for the poor, his inner circle of true believers and, ultimately, his success in helping stem the tide of new HIV and TB infections in Haiti. Following his lecture, Mr. Kidder conducted a public book signing and spoke individually with students and guests at a reception in Larsen Student Union, sponsored by Messiah’s Student Programs Office.

View a slideshow of photos from the event.